BDP-S380 missing Five, iPlayer, and Youtube

[Bingobear]

Now with internet wiring to my lounge, I recently tried to access Five, iPlayer, and Youtube on my BDP S380, which otherwise is great.

But they apps do not appear, only Amazon Prime, Stingray Qello, Yupp TV, Green TV, U Studio, Tagesschau, and DW. Most of these work, and internet connection is OK

Logos for the missing ones were on the original box, but I can see on the internet that each have problems from time to time on blu ray players.

The answer for some players seems to be updated firmware, but mine is the latest at M06.R.0632

So my question is whether it is going to be possible to add them somehow?

If the answer is no, then I would consider a newer Sony player if this would help, but my TV does not have HDMI input, so I am using Composite, which is not present on current players. Therefore it might have to be secondhand / refurbished, and I see that the S530 and S790 do have Composite, but would they provide the sought-after Five, iPlayer and Youtube?

I'd be grateful for, and appreciate any advice, please.

[Pascale_F]

Hi Bingobear, 

I'm just going to try to find some answers for you. In the meantime, maybe someone else in the community might have some ideas. 

Thanks,

Pascale

[Bingobear]

Your involvement is greatly appreciated, Pascale_F, I'm wondering what I need to do here.

An enquiry of the seller of a potential newer replacement (used) Sony machine has said that these apps have ceased to work on his player too, attributing this to a lack of availability of recent firmware updates. I suspect this to be the case with mine, unless there is some resetting to do, more than I have tried already.

My player is also displaying a notice about the withdrawal of Gracenote services, about which I've found a Sony bulletin was issued two days ago. https://www.sony.com.ph/electronics/support/articles/00203076

The notice lists the (many) affected machines and says that some of them will receive a firmware update to apply the removal of Gracenote.

If it is the case, as has been implied to me, that the lack of service updates for many machines might be the reason for the loss of apps which the machines were said to be capable of, (and printed on the original box,)  then it would be wonderful if a flurry of service updates for all the machines listed were made available. This would give us back what we thought we had bought !

However, as I said in my original posting, I am quite prepared to update my machine to something newer (with composite output) but need to establish which ones will give me the "catch up" services  now missing from mine. Whether or not any of those on the Sony list for loss of Gracenote will maintain the "catch up" services I am still trying to discover.

Any and all advice will be much appreciated.

[Almou_10]

Hi Bingobear,

I've checked with Sony the availability of Demand5, BBC iPlayer, and YouTube on 2011 home video players like the BDP-S380, and it's not available on any of the models.

Cheers,

Almou_10

[Bingobear]

Thank you, Almou_10, for taking the trouble to provide an answer for me on this.

I appreciate and accept that it is my restriction to something with composite or scart outputs which is making my achievement of "catch up" TV increasingly unlikely without also replacing the receiver itself.

Using my blu ray player to do this was only a recent idea, based on the fact that mine does have composite out, and now with a wired connection, - on the surface of it this seemed a possible answer, (as the logos were on the box).

But yet another of my good ideas has gone wrong !

I'd already considered quite a few of the available streaming sticks / boxes, but almost all of those I looked at required a HDMI connection. I've noticed that circumventing this restriction is well discussed on the internet, but my impression is that most leads aren't advised, and converting boxes may have snags or limitations. Perhaps someone could suggest one that works 100% ?

I also got the impression that Roku now produces a model with a composite output (via a custom lead) but can't find them on sale anywhere. I'd ask Roku themselves, but neither can I find a customer advice address.

Clearly, I don't really know the subject well enough, so if anyone can spare a moment to point me in the right direction, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.